before it gets better
by Seren McGowan
Summary: "And it's going to get a lot worse, before it gets better." George is fine.


_To Fred, whose death was ridicuous and innecesary. And to George, who's still alive._

_**Dissclaimer:** I own nothing_

* * *

**_before it gets better_**

* * *

_Hey, can you hear me?_

_Of course not. Not anymore. Never again._

It's been a while already, and he still can't look at himself in the mirror.

He guesses he looks worn out, maybe pale, perhaps tired. Probably his hair is longer, is possible that his ear has grown back -well, that's not really possible- He might have bags under his eyes, and maybe they're less bright, less alive.

He wouldn't know, thought, because the last time he checked, it was not him he saw in the mirror. Eventually, he stopped looking.

His mother thinks he needs to open up, to talk, to let his feelings flow. "_It will be good for you_" she says, but if it's supposed to be good for him, he wonders why she's never smiling when she says it.

"_I'm fine_" He would say, and even if no one believes him, it's actually the truth.

He is fine, he doesn't feel pain or loneliness, he is neither miserable or angry.

He is fine, he feels nothing at all.

_never again, never again, never again_

He wonders how does their -no, not _their_, _his_- room looks like right now.

It's been a while since he's been in there. Sometimes he stops just outside the door and feels the need to open it, but he never does.

They think he doesn't hear them when they talk, but he does. "_He's getting worse_" His mother would say "_He won't look in the mirror, he won't go in their room_" And then she cries.

He feels the need to correct her. It's not their room anymore. Now it's his room. His only.

"_He will get through it. He will be fine_." His father would murmur, holding his mother as she cries.

The problem with them, he thinks, is that they think that he has some kind of...trauma, or whatever. But he doesn't. He's fine. He simply doesn't want to go in his room. Yes, he wonders how it looks like now, sometimes, but that doesn't mean he want's to see it.

He hasn't been at Number 93 of Diagon Alley neither. He is curious sometimes, about how's the store doing. He heard that Ron and Harry were taking care of it until he "got better" but truth is, he doesn't care much. He doesn't say the name of the store out loud, and he doesn't think of it, so he doesn't need to see it anymore.

He's not going to get better, because there is nothing wrong with him to begin with.

_nothing at all, nothing at all, nothing at all_

_Hey, you can answer, you know_

_Please._

The Burrow is full of people lately. Everyone has come home, even Bill and Fleur come for lunch or dinner almost every day. Harry and Hermione are practically living there, and Charlie and Percy, whom were supposed to stay just for a while, don't seem to be going anywhere anytime soon. Andromeda Tonks has moved in for some time too, with her baby grandson Teddy.

He feels a little bad, every time he wishes they'd leave.

He knows they're hurting, all of them. His mother cries every time she looks at him, and each time he comes into the room there's silence and reassuring smiles and pointless conversations that are meant to take his mind of the one thing he doesn't think about.

Andromeda comes to sit beside him on the floor one day, while he is staring at the fire growing in the fireplace. "_The part of you that's gone is never going to come back"_ She says, and he feels like it's the first time in a long time that someone has been honest with him. "_You will go through life thinking that it's pointless, because you're broken, defective, like if someone had ripped of your thumbs_." He is smiling now, but she is staring into the fire, like lost in a memory.

He wonders what story lies behind those words. He wonders how is it possible for her to understand, when no one else does.

"_And it's going to get a lot worse, before it gets better._"

She stands up and smiles slightly down at him.

"_But it gets better._"

He is standing before Fred's grave, and it's suddenly very clear; this is _his_ grave too. They were the same. This is their grave.

_Hey, it's me, George..._

He begins to speak, but his voice cracks and his knees weaken and he falls to the ground, sobbing uncontrollably and burying his hands in the soil over their grave. _Their_ grave. It's the only ting that is theirs now.

It's getting worse.

He laughs as he cries, because his chest is aching and he feels like dying, and it's so much worse than feeling nothing at all.

This is so much worse.

It will get better.


End file.
